First Daughter Ivanka Trump had a sharp, clever comeback when she was pressed by a podcast to answer why she wouldn’t join her father, President-elect Donald Trump, in his second term in the White House.
Ivanka Trump, who helps run her father’s many businesses, served as a senior White House aide during President Trump’s first administration, but announced during his reelection campaign that she wouldn’t join him for a second term.
While on the Skinny Confidential’s podcast, Ivanka was pressured to explain why she was staying with her family this time.
She had a sharp, clear 3-word response: “I hate politics.”
“I love policy and impact. I hate politics,” the 43-year-old business mogul told the podcast. “And unfortunately, the two are not separable.”
She said the Washington, D.C. swamp was a “very dark, negative business.”
“There is a darkness to that world that I don’t really want to welcome into mine,” Ivanka said. “I know the cost, and it’s a price that I’m not willing to make my kids bear.”
Her sister-in-law Lara Trump confirmed the decision stemmed from family considerations.
“Jared [Kushner] and Ivanka obviously were very, very much involved during the first term and it was really tough on them,” Lara told The New York Post recently.
Ivanka won’t be isolated from her family, but said she instead plans to support her father personally rather than professionally when he returns to office.
“I think I’m most looking forward to just being able to show up for him as a daughter and be there for him to take his mind off things, to watch a movie with him, or watch a sports game,” she said.
The mother of three relocated to Florida with husband Jared Kushner after leaving the White House in 2021. Their children – Arabella, 13, Joseph, 10, and Theodore, 8 – factored heavily in her decision.
“Every time I had to miss something, I’m like, ‘I will never let this happen again the minute I leave the White House,'” Trump said, reflecting on balancing her previous White House role with family life.
The former first daughter described her White House tenure as a time of “extraordinary personal growth” but acknowledged becoming “calloused” by the experience.
Trump and Kushner served as senior advisers during President-elect Trump’s first administration from 2017 to 2021, while her siblings Donald Jr., Eric, and Tiffany supported their father’s campaigns without formal White House roles.